DUDES. ART = CULTURE = LIFE.

It's cold and I've got broken pipes in my house and things that will cost a fortune to fix and there's no water and heat in obasically one room and we're getting YET ANOTHER SNOWSTORM, so I'm justifiably angsting and generally bummed.

Being a writer (yes, dammit, that's what I am), I am a splinter on a spoke of the arts wheel, so yes, of course I want money directed toward the arts. However. The stimulus package is meant to provide an immediate shot in the arm to the economy, stimulating the immediate and massive growth of jobs, and providing immediate stabilization to our financial sector. Outline for me, in detail please, how this allotment of funds to the arts will do that, and is not, as included in this bill, pure pork. And please, no long term effects, for again, this package is meant to have an immediate effect.

"We're not going to be able to think about happiness and quality of life only in terms of the next vacation or the bigger house or the new car," Ivey says. "Once we move away from a consumerist view of a high quality of life — once we're forced away from it — arts and culture, creativity, homemade art, those things can begin to come to the fore."

Finally. I do agree with the above commenter that I'm unconvinced that on an immediate economic stimulus level this will make a big difference. *However*, I think they've done themselves a disservice trying to sell it that way. We need funding for arts and cultural organizations because it's needed for an interesting, intellectually robust culture and country, not because it may or may not make more or less money. The government, I think, should be thinking about quality of life as well as the CPI.